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Mar 1, 2013 at 10:20 AMMar 1, 2013 at 10:30 AM

Tigers live on another day, put Owls to bed with district victory

Ryan Ronan @RyanRonan_KDE

MEXICO, Mo. – After nearly two weeks off the Kirksville Tigers finally took on the Marshall Owls in the first round of the Class 4 District 8 Tournament Thursday night. The Tigers felt like if they waited two weeks, they could wait another three quarters, as the KHS defense held the Owl offense to only four fourth quarter points as Kirksville advanced with a 53-44 win.The night started rather auspiciously for Kirksville. The game had been delayed by over four days, the gym was about 80 percent empty, Marshall came out playing a zone defense, and the Kirksville offense struggled to get much going in the first eight minutes as they trailed 15-9 going to the second.

Things began to turn around in the second quarter as KHS tied the game an on multiple occasions before the break, but the fourth quarter is where they really got going. Trailing by five going to the fourth, Kirkville came out on an 11-0 in taking their first lead at 42-40. The run was fueled by their defense and fast break points. The zone was no longer a problem because Marshall was hardly able to get it set up and when they did the Tigers figured out how to beat it.

“It took a little while to get back into game shape, but late in the game we found it. We finally got a guy into the high post and had guys running the baseline, which is something we should have been doing all night,” said Kirksville senior Tyson Grgurich.

Kirksville head coach Tyler Martin took a different approach to things at halftime.

“We had some good looks in the second quarter and we tried to build off of that. It wasn’t a great quarter, but we had a few good looks that we tried to take the positives out of it and the guys responded to that. I think they thought they were going to get dogged a little bit, but I took it easy on them because they’re smart kids who know what they needed to do,” said Martin.

A key play in the third quarter was when Kirksville forced a Marshall turnover and drove the ball to the rim. Senior Kevin Hennke missed the layup, but Kirksville fought for the offensive rebound and Hennke got open in the corner and knocked down a big three-point shot. Another interesting situation played out midway through the fourth quarter that again saw they Tigers reap the benefits. Zach Bishop of Marshall missed a layup opportunity for the Owls, on the rebound Nathan Farnsworth was called for a foul, but Bishop was given a technical foul for what came after the play. Bishop only made one of his free throws, while Grgurich knocked down both and upped the Kirksville lead to 48-41, with just minutes to go.As high paced as the fourth quarter was the first quarter was the complete opposite for the Tigers.

“It was a sloppy game to start, especially defensively. I think they were ready to use the time off as an excuse, but then we worked through it and got some things going and tightened up defensively, which is what I thought they key was,” said Martin.

Marshall scored 15 points in the first eight minutes, but was unable to even double that for the rest of the game as they only scored 29 points in the final three quarters.

“We just decided to buckle down. There came a point where us seniors only had eight more minutes to play and we had to decide if we wanted our season to end or not,” said Grgurich.

Kirksville completed the season sweep of the Owls, however they will now face the top-seeded Mexico Bulldogs who swept the Tigers in the regular season. That game is today at 6 p.m. at Mexico.